A generic surfactant-free approach to overcome wetting limitations and its application to improve inkjet-printed P3HT:non-fullerene acceptor PV

Maisch P, Eisenhofer LM, Tam KC, Distler A, Voigt MM, Brabec C, Egelhaaf HJ (2019)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Journal

Journal of Materials Chemistry A Royal Society of Chemistry

Book Volume: 7

Pages Range: 13215-13224

Journal Issue: 21

DOI: 10.1039/c9ta02209k

Abstract

Solution based thin film technology often implies challenging wetting behaviour which has to be improved in order to achieve good printing or coating qualities. A common way of solving such problems is the use of wetting agents but they often show undesired side effects. In this work, we introduce a generic strategy to overcome this problem. We demonstrate inkjet printed arrays of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) dots to efficiently pin the three-phase contact line of wet films, thereby enforcing homogenous wetting and subsequent drying on low energetic surfaces. By printing and drying single droplets of ink, a matrix of anchoring points is created which pins the subsequently printed continuous wet layer and thus enables the coating of large surface areas with homogeneous, defect free films. This method also allows convenient patterning of surfaces by combining inkjet-printing of anchoring points with subsequent large area flood coating, e.g., by doctor blading. Furthermore, the defined placement of each anchoring point allows full thermodynamic control of the film formation by quantitative calculation of the processing windows and patterning precision. The beneficial application of this new strategy to printed electronics is demonstrated by fabricating organic solar cells with power conversion efficiencies of 5%. This is achieved by printing a hydrophilic PEDOT:PSS electron blocking layer without addition of surfactants at unprecedented quality onto an otherwise non-wettable hydrophobic active layer consisting of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and the indacenodithiophene-based non-fullerene acceptor O-IDTBR.

Authors with CRIS profile

Christoph Brabec Institute Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) Hans-Joachim Egelhaaf Institute Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET)

Related research project(s)

Laboranalyse von Degradationsmechanismen unter beschleunigter Alterung und Entwicklung geeigneter feldtauglicher bildgebender Detektionsverfahren und Entwicklung und Evaluation eines Algorithmus zur Fehlerdetektion und Prognostizierung der Ausfallwahrscheinlichkeit (iPV4.0) Laboranalyse von Degradationsmechanismen unter beschleunigter Alterung und Entwicklung geeigneter feldtauglicher bildgebender Detektionsverfahren und Entwicklung und Evaluation eines Algorithmus zur Fehlerdetektion und Prognostizierung der Ausfallwahrscheinlichkeit (iPV4.0) Aug. 1, 2018 - July 31, 2021

Involved external institutions

Bayerisches Zentrum für Angewandte Energieforschung e.V. (ZAE Bayern) DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Maisch, P., Eisenhofer, L.M., Tam, K.C., Distler, A., Voigt, M.M., Brabec, C., & Egelhaaf, H.-J. (2019). A generic surfactant-free approach to overcome wetting limitations and its application to improve inkjet-printed P3HT:non-fullerene acceptor PV. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 7(21), 13215-13224. https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c9ta02209k

MLA:

Maisch, Philipp, et al. "A generic surfactant-free approach to overcome wetting limitations and its application to improve inkjet-printed P3HT:non-fullerene acceptor PV." Journal of Materials Chemistry A 7.21 (2019): 13215-13224.

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